Ballots to remain uncounted in MI and Stein blocked in Philly. Guest: Election integrity, law expert Paul Lehto says this proves 'only option is to get it right on Election Night'. Also: Trump taps climate denier, fossil-fuel tool for EPA...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Facing the aftermath of disaster in Joplin; Typhoon Songda hits Japan (Fukushima spared); Germany to dump all nukes; Rise of the emissions - now the highest on record; PLUS: Saudi Arabia really wants you to have lower gas prices ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Palin’s first stop was a motorcycle rally in D.C. where she rode in on a Harley and proudly announced to a group of veterans and TV cameras, “I love that smell of the emissions!” Ironically, the same day Palin professed her love of carbon emissions, the International Energy Agency issued a dramatic announcement on the same subject: greenhouse-gas emissions increased by a record amount last year to the highest carbon output in history.

It may soon be too late to stop global warming due to record levels of carbon emissions being belched into the atmosphere, experts have warned.
...
Fatih Birol, IEA chief economist, said: “This is the worst news on emissions. It is becoming extremely ­challenging to remain below two degrees. The prospect is getting bleaker.”

our energy choices are based on the visible costs that appear on utility bills and at the gas pump. This system masks the social costs arising from those energy choices, including shorter lives, higher health care expenses, a changing climate, and weakened national security. As a result, we pay unnecessarily high costs for energy.

In an exclusive interview with ThinkProgress Green, the manager of the C40 Climate Leadership Group, Simon Reddy explained how the group works together:

"All cities are different, but a lot of the solutions and the problems are similar. There isn’t one large city in the world that doesn’t have traffic problems, that couldn’t be more efficient in its use of electricity, that isn’t trying to improve its waste systems. The leaders come together to share ideas on waste, bus transit systems, travel demand management."

The main thing I just want to communicate to the people of Joplin is this is just not your tragedy. This is a national tragedy and that means there will be a national response.
...
And then we're just going to have a tough, long slog. But what I've been telling every family that I've met here is we're going to be here long after the cameras leave. We are not going to stop until Joplin is fully back on its feet.

"[T]o have that debate in the face of the suffering we’ve seen in Joplin is just plain wrong.
...When you talk about cutting clean energy programs versus cutting subsidies for big oil, let’s have that debate here in Washington. But let’s not have it on the backs of people of Joplin.”

WATCH: Saudi prince calls for lower oil prices: Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal said Sunday that he wants oil prices to drop so that the United States and Europe don't accelerate efforts to wean themselves off his country's supply. (Fareed Zakaria, CNN)

BIN TALAL: The stiff position of Saudi Arabia, we want the price to be between $70 and $80. Not only to help the West, but also to help ourselves. We don’t want the West to go and find alternatives, because, clearly, the higher the price oil goes, the more you have incentive to go and find alternatives. So, really, our interest coincides with American interest, to have the price for around $70, $80 which is a price good for consumers and producers.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "Step by step, we will abandon nuclear energy by the end of 2022. This path is a big challenge for Germany, but it also means huge opportunities for future generations. We believe that our country can become a front runner for the creation of renewable energy, and as the first large industrial nation, we can create such a change toward highly efficient and renewable energies, with all its opportunities for export, developments and technology which create jobs."

Germany to shut all nuclear reactors by 2022: Germany is to shut down all the country's nuclear reactors by 2022 making it the first major industrial power to become nuclear free in the aftermath of the Japanese Fukushima disaster. (Telegraph UK)

Japan will pay schools near the quake-ravaged Fukushima nuclear power plant to remove radioactive top soil and set a lower radiation exposure limit for schoolchildren after a growing outcry over health risks.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the fish, whose fatty flesh is prized by sushi aficionados, would be classified as a species of concern, however, effectively placing bluefin on a watch list as the agency awaits new data on the impact of a stricter international management regimen.

The annual G8 Summit concluded this afternoon with agreement among leaders of the world's largest industrial democracies to strengthen nuclear security in view of Japan's ongoing nuclear power plant crisis. The leaders outlined their climate change goals for the United Nations negotiations in Durban, South Africa later this year, agreed on their commitment to "sustainable" growth and offered support to the newly free countries of North Africa.

“Electricity is unique when it comes to meeting the climate change challenge,” said Bo Diczfalusy, Director of Sustainable Energy Policy and Technology at the IEA, in a statement at the book’s launch. “It…holds many of the solutions to a more efficient, less carbon-intensive economy.”

The Elwha River on Washington's Olympic Peninsula once teemed with legendary salmon runs before two towering concrete dams built nearly a century ago cut off fish access to upstream habitat, diminished their runs and altered the ecosystem." Now the dams are being removed.

The award-winning actor defends her role in an advertising campaign that supports Australia's proposed carbon tax, after climate denying conservatives accuse her of being "morally vain" and out of touch with "ordinary Australians".

Scientists have been using small variations in the Earth's gravity to identify trouble spots around the globe where people are making unsustainable demands on groundwater, one of the planet's main sources of fresh water.

Budget cuts proposed by House Republicans to the Food and Drug Administration would undermine the agency's ability to carry out a historic food-safety law passed by Congress just five months ago, food safety advocates say.

Plastics freed us from the confines of the natural world, from the material constraints and limited supplies that had long bounded human activity. That new elasticity unfixed social boundaries as well. The arrival of these malleable and versatile materials gave producers the ability to create a treasure trove of new products while expanding opportunities for people of modest means to become consumers. Plastics held out the promise of a new material and cultural democracy. The comb, that most ancient of personal accessories, enabled anyone to keep that promise close.

What is plastic, this substance that has reached so deeply into our lives?